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About the author

Elke Heinemann

Elke Heinemann has been an editor for the DLR web portal since 2003. After studying German and English as well as theatre, film and television studies in Cologne, she worked in the TV sector and provided reports as well as magazine articles. After she graduated, she undertook an intership in the DLR Communications department.

She has been responsible for the developmen of special sites for missions, such as the Rosetta mission, the International Space Station and Mars Express, for the DLR web portal. As self-confessed science fiction fan, she is fascinated by anything related to space. Specially close to her heart is Mars. She has been reporting about the Red Planet for 15 years now and, sometimes, she would even like to go there - but only with a return flight.

Posts from Elke Heinemann

If animals could talk, they could tell us a lot about life on our planet. Their migratory movements help us to better understand how to protect human health and wildlife on Earth. Yet scientists are unable to follow small animals and insects on their long journey. Billions of songbirds move every year from continent to continent. Bats and countless insect species may do the same, but we don’t know for sure. This knowledge could provide insights into animal behaviour, the spread of epidemics such as bird flu and Ebola, the impact of climate change, as well as food security in some regions. It would also help predict natural disasters by tapping the highly developed senses of animals, which often react faster to such dangers than humans do.
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Hayabusa2, JAXA's asteroid explorer, and the MASCOT lander, developed by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the French space agency (CNES) have been travelling through space since December 2014. They are finally closing in on their destination asteroid – Ryugu. As of 14 June 2018, the distance between Hayabusa2 and Ryugu is less than 770 kilometres and the closing speed is 2.1 metres per second.
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Since its arrival at the red planet in December 2003, imagery of ESA's Mars Express mission enjoys great popularity, with the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) onboard the spacecraft, which is operated by the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR), playing a major role.
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Surface structures are becoming visible in new images of the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. These images, with a resolution of 100 metres per pixel, were acquired with the OSIRIS scientific imaging system on board Rosetta. The comet’s neck region – the section connecting the two heads – seems to be much brighter than the head and body of the nucleus.
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